x, 947 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : 23 cm

On June 6, 1944-D-Day-six thousand Allied ships, the largest fleet in history, arrived off the French coast to begin the liberation of Europe. To their enormous relief, the Allies had obtained complete tactical surprise; the Nazi eagle slept. D-Day, which could have been one of history's bloodiest disasters, became instead one of its greatest victories.How this astonishing surprise was achieved is the subject of Bodyguard of Lies, one of the most exciting volumes ever written about the Second World War. Telling the most complete story of the biggest and most complicated intelligence operation in the history of war, Bodyguard of Lies presents a large and fascinating cast of heroes and rogues and sweeps through dozens of dramatic stories of plot and counterplot, stealth and treachery, lies and deceits. It provides the full story behind Churchill's agonizing decision not to warn the city of Coventry that it was about to be destroyed, and follows the deadly cat-and-mouse games between Allied agents in

France and the Gestapo, the near fiasco of Montgomery's "double," who could not be kept sober, and the heroic but doomed efforts of the anti-Hitler German underground to eliminate the Fuehrer, including the role of the chief of the German intelligence service in passing secrets over to the British. These and many more explosive stories, of code-breakers and deceivers, of plots and ruses at the highest and lowest levels, make up the tapestry of this monumental book

Subtitle from cover

Includes bibliographical references (pages 894-904) and index

Originally published: Harper & Row, 1975

The origins of special means, 1938-1942 : Ultra ; Coventry ; Special means operational ; The search for a strategy ; Alam Halfa ; El Alamein -- The Roots of Conspiracy, 1934-1943 : Canaris ; The Schwarze Kapelle ; Friend or foe ; The plot begins ; The outbreak of war ; Conspiracy at the Vatican ; The Venlo incident ; "Adroit intrigue" ; Canaris at work ; The assassination of Heydrich ; Operation Flash -- High strategy and low tactics, 1943 : Casablanca ; The Battle of the Atlantic ; The LCS and Plan Jael ; Mincemeat ; Quebec ; The Schwarze Kapelle, 1943 ; Starkey ; Prosper ; The intelligence attack ; Teheran ; Cicero -- Cover and Deception, January to June 1944 ; Eisenhower, supreme commander ; The German supreme command ; Bodyguard ; The Balkans ; Fortitude North ; Fortitude South ; Nuremberg ; Aerial stratagems ; Security ; The wireless game ; The French labyrinth ; Canaris's last throw ; Vendetta ; The eve of D-Day -- Normandy to nemesis, June 6 to August 20, 1944 ; D-Day ; The deceptions of D-Day ; Sword and stratagem ; The French revolt ; Rommel ; The V1 ; Goodwood ; July 20, 1944 ; The breakout ; Gotterdammerung

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